Photography Blog

How Street Photography Helps Hone Your Skills

Two young kids believed to be neighbours share an intimate hug when they spotted me point a camera at them

There are times as a photographer you lose the drive to carry on. It’s like a vehicle losing its engine, how is it gonna work? I can vividly remember when I left high school freshly in 2013, my dad just retired from the workforce and my mum was basically the one fending for the family. I thought it was gonna be an hitch free journey towards becoming a pro photographer but hey, I thought wrong. In this post I want to elucidate further on how Street photography helped me drive on and also brought back the engine in me.

Understanding your profession: Street photography as a genre made me understand the camera, it made me induced to the camera. Look at this, to take a good Street photograph, you need to have a good eye for seeing the difference, courage to put your camera to your face in streets and understanding of the essentials needed to make your street photograph a good photograph. Framing a street photograph is like preparing a complicated meal most especially when it’s a street portrait of an individual. The individual is probably On the move so they not striking a pose for you and it becomes essential mathematics to put such a person in frame at such dexterity. Fast shutter speed and high aperture of 8-10 f-stop. Before then I had no idea what these did to my images but with Street photography, it was like free training.

One other reason Street photography definitely helps any upcoming photographer is that it’s absolutely free to do. You don’t need a client before you can photograph, you don’t need some fee negotiations. All you need is a camera and your courage.

Once you’ve garner courage photographing strangers, then you probably won’t be intimidated when you do other genres of photography that involves more than one photographer working. Photojournalism and lifestyle photography are my other majors and hey its pretty full of many amateur photographers with cameras worth 10x mine. I definitely couldn’t be intimidated and I work with much seriousness and expertise. If you could photograph a strong face looking man without his permission then why be afraid to photograph the calm, educated, rich man?

That’s where I draw the curtain today, I’ll be back soon with more inspiring posts, till then, shoot well and stay safe